Urban Affairs Reporter

A fight on his hands ... Rod Shearer is sitting tight in the Newtown bedsit he has called home for about 30 years but changes to the law could see long-term renters like him turfed out onto the streets. Photo: Kate Geraghty

ROD SHEARER has watched conflicts unfold from his bedsit in Newtown since the 1980s.

''I remember that I watched the Falklands War on my Admiral television in this place,'' he said.

The skirmishes closer to home have usually involved his latest landlord: the 79-year-old says he has withstood three eviction attempts since 2006.

''I'm a person who does speak up about [the] rights of people; most people don't know their rights,'' he said.

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But under changes proposed by the NSW government, the right to stay in such properties may no longer fall in the favour of long-term protected tenants such as Mr Shearer, the Tenants' Union of NSW has warned.

The NSW Fair Trading Minister, Anthony Roberts, has proposed repealing the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Act 1948 as part of the government's commitment to reduce ''red tape''.

Introduced after World War II to provide rent control and security tenure for tenants, particularly serviceman, the act has not applied to any tenancy created since 1986. The government announced in 1989 it would start to phase out the 10,000 protected tenancies that then existed.

In the absence of any reliable data, a government discussion paper said it was unknown if any such ''protected tenancies'' remained.

But the tenants' union said this was ''palpably wrong'' and more than 600 people - mostly aged pensioners such as Mr Shearer - would be forced out if the act were scrapped.

''It is well-known that these tenancies do exist, and their number is relatively small but significant,'' its senior policy officer, Chris Martin, said.

''If the law is repealed, these elderly tenants will lose their homes of many years. Many will face homelessness.''

The union said it was estimated last year that between 600 to 1400 properties were still covered by the act, which limited the rent increases and evictions for these long-term tenants.

Mr Shearer, a former electrical engineer who emigrated to Australia from Austria to work on the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme, said his current rent was $758 a month. ''It's nearly 40 per cent of my pension - 39.786 per cent, if you want to know,'' he said.

Most landlords would be unlikely to keep a tenant on at the current rent and would gain a windfall in increased property values if the law was repealed, Dr Martin said, as properties traded at a discount if such a tenancy were in place.

Under the act, a property was only ''decontrolled'' when a protected tenant moved out or died.

A NSW Fair Trading spokeswoman said submissions were open until February, and the discussion paper included options to protect any remaining tenants if the act was repealed.

In addition to a 12-month grace period for tenants to secure alternative affordable housing, these options included ''streamlining the act but retaining the key protections against rent increases and terminations, or placing the key provisions in the mainstream tenancy laws'', she said.